Samsung is to equip two of its wireless-enabled notebooks with Airgo's bandwidth-boosting 'multiple input, multiple output' (MIMO) Wi-Fi technology, the two companies announced at Computex 2005 this week.

A number of cost-cutting moves helped the beleaguered SCO Group shrink its second quarter loss. But despite improving its bottom line, the software maker had little good news for investors on the sales front.

Fujitsu has dropped a key supplier for the NHS patients records project in the south and west of England. Fujitsu is scrapping an agreement with US firm IDX in favour of a product from Cerner. It is the first time a major supplier has been ejected from the NHS IT programme. The change is subject to contract but that should be signed in the next two weeks.

Numerous Taiwanese manufacturers began pitching for Skype users' business this week, as the annual Computex hardware show played host to a range of gadgets designed to make the P2P-based VoIP software easier to use.

The European Commission has stepped into the debate on the proposed data retention bill, saying that the legislation will now require telcos and ISPs to hold onto data for a year, rather that the three or four years originally proposed.

Japanese boffins have succeeded in achieving what's touted as the World's fastest continuous quantum cryptography key generation. Researchers from NEC, the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology and the Japan Science and Technology Agency achieved a fortnight-long, continuous quantum cryptography final-key generation1 at an average rate of 13kbps over a 16-km-long commercial optical network.

Delivery of Airbus's A380 "super-jumbo" will be delayed for up to six months, the company has confirmed. Accordingly, Qantas - due to put the beast into service in October 2006 - will not now get its hands on the joystick until April 2007. Likewise, Singapore Airlines, set be the first airline to fly A380s, will also have to wait an additional three months until the end of 2006. Compensation claims from the carriers are likely, the BBC reports.

The PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 aren't going to be the only consumer electronics kit with removable hard drives, at least not if Taiwanese developer Argosy Research has anything to say in the matter. At Computex 2005 in Taipei this week, it showed off an hard disk-based media player that can spit out its HDD ready for connection to a PC.

The theme of the person awaking from a deep sleep or coma to find a world utterly changed is a popular one in science fiction. From John Wyndham's book The Day of The Triffids through The Omega Man to the recent film 28 Days Later, the trope of the man arising from his hospital bed to find that nothing is as it was has become well-worn.

PC maker AOpen has been quick to attempt to stamp out any suggestions that its remarkably Mac Mini-like "Mini PC", jointly demonstrated at Computex 2005 this week with Intel, is intended to compete with the Apple product.

Free software advocates are holding a last conference on the software patents directive today, ahead of a parliamentary vote on the directive on 21 June. This afternoon, Association Electronique Libre and Open Standaarden will lead a demonstration in Brussels against the proposed legislation.

More than 295,000 virus-infected emails were sent to companies in the UK in May before anti-virus vendors could issue signature updates, according to email filtering firm BlackSpider Technologies. It’s long been known that there is a ‘window of exposure’ - the interval between when a virus begins spreading and signature updates are issued by anti-virus vendors. BlackSpider has put a figure on this phenomenon in order to back up its argument that there’s a high risk of infection during this ‘window of exposure’ for firms that rely on conventional anti-virus scanners alone.

Everyone knows the old classic that everyone on the planet is separated by just six degrees, so, if you want to get in touch with a Patagonian goat-herd, a chain of just half-a-dozen people will bring you face-to-face with your target.

Exports of software and IT services from India will rise 30 to 32 per cent in the year to March 2006, according to predictions from India's leading association of technology companies. The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) said that exports will hit $22.5bn in 2006, up from $17.2bn in the FY ending March 2005 and $16.7bn in 2003-04. Domestic market revenues grow by 24 per cent in FY 04-05 to reach $4.8bn.

Scandinavia seems to getting tougher with those sharing illegal music files on the web. Sweden last week passed a law banning the sharing of copyrighted material on the web without payment of royalties. Until now, it was legal in Sweden to download copyrighted movie and music files, but making them available for sharing was unlawful.